Manti Te’o to have first on-camera interview with Katie Couric

Manti Te’o to have first on-camera interview with Katie Couric

Manti Te'o (CNN Photo)

(CNN) — Manti Te’o, the Notre Dame linebacker at the center of an online hoax involving his non-existent girlfriend, will sit down for his first on-camera interview this week with Katie Couric, the talk show host said Sunday.

Couric announced on her Twitter account that Te’o and his parents would take part in the interview airing Thursday on the “Katie” show. No other details were given.

(Editor’s note: WGHP airs Katie on a one-day delay. Therefore, the interview will air on WGHP on Friday rather than Thursday.)

Sports website Deadspin broke the story Wednesday that the girlfriend that Te’o, this year’s Heisman Trophy runner-up, had talked about and had claimed died in September of leukemia wasn’t real. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told reporters later that day Te’o was the victim, having been fooled into believing that a woman he met on the Internet — but never in person — was his girlfriend.

After issuing a brief statement Wednesday, Te’o sat down Friday with ESPN for an off-camera interview.

There, one of the best defenders in college football this season defended himself against allegations that he was somehow involved in the online scheme.

Thursday’s interview with Couric would be the first time Te’o has spoken on camera about the hoax. His parents, Brian and Ottilia Te’o, who also haven’t spoken out since the story broke, will also answer questions, according to Couric.

Te’o rose to national prominence leading Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish to an undefeated regular season. As he and his team excelled, Te’o told interviewers in September and October that his grandmother and girlfriend — whom he described as a 22-year-old Stanford University student — had died within hours of each other.

“I miss ’em, but I know that I’ll see them again one day,” he said then.

Te’o told Schaap that the hoax was created by a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo.

He said Tuiasosopo contacted him the day the story broke via Twitter, explaining he’d created the hoax and apologizing, according to Schaap. CNN has not seen the tweets Te’o allegedly received from Tuiasosopo.

“Two guys and a girl are responsible for the whole thing,” Te’o said, according to ESPN.

Ronaiah Tuiasosopo hasn’t spoken publicly, nor had members of his family, in the past week.

“I know he doesn’t feel his best, but he definitely feels like … this family is there for him,” said Peter Navy Tuiasosopo, who is an actor. “And if not for this young man and his strength and family with God, he would have done something stupid.”